Apple to Release Code as Part of Open-Source Effort
Apple Computer, which for years watched its share of the computer market dwindle as it insisted on designing its own proprietary hardware and software, made a break with the past Tuesday as it announced it will release some of the code in its new operating system for servers.
Apple interim Chief Executive Steve Jobs said the core of the Mac OS X code will be licensed for free, along with Apple’s version of the free Apache Web server software and some proprietary technology. The chief condition of the license will be that any improvements made by outsiders also have to be shared openly, he said.
“We’re the first major company to contribute in a major way” to the growing open-source movement, said Apple software engineering head Avie Tevanian. “We’ve been a consumer of it, and now the community will help us.”
The open-source effort has crystallized around Linux, an alternative to Microsoft operating systems that is available for free. Some corporations and software developers who create applications have gravitated to Linux for its reliability. And while Linux was created outside of mainstream business, new companies have sprouted up to provide Linux services.
Jobs trotted out leaders of the nonprofit Open Source Initiative, who said the company’s licensing agreement met the group’s standards for fairness. “Apple really gets it,” said Eric Raymond, president of the group. “I hope this will develop into a pattern with other companies.”
While surprising, Apple’s move to share intellectual property in one area isn’t very risky, analysts said. In the first place, not enough of the system’s code is being released to allow the entire operating environment to be recreated elsewhere. In addition, Apple has almost no share of the booming market for servers, powerful computers that control corporate computer networks as well as the Internet.
Analysts don’t expect the new server software to take many customers away from those using Microsoft’s Windows NT or Sun Microsystems’ Solaris network software, but they said it could help Apple slightly in its principal education and publishing markets.
More important for Apple, the distribution of source code will probably encourage application developers who have been put off by the company’s smaller base of customers.
“It will be a major relief to Apple developers. It will be great for the platform,” said Arthur Tyde, a onetime Apple developer who is founder and CEO of San Francisco’s Linuxcare. “I don’t think it really fundamentally changes the landscape” in the open-source movement.
